Haha! I totally had this post finished, but forgot to actually post it until now. That is the reason for the lateness.
This might sound like an extension of one of my annotated sources, and it partially is, but I've just had some particularly interesting insights about essay writing that I'd love to share. And just to give you fair warning, this post will unabashedly quote and praise Alexander Smith, particularly his essay "On the Writing of Essays." Now that you've been warned, let us proceed.
As I delved deeper into studying this essay by Alexander Smith, I kept noticing his interesting method for talking about the writing of essays. You would think that Smith would, as his title denotes, simply describe the process of writing an essay, or instruct us on how to write an essay--but no, no my Alex. He does, in a roundabout way, include these things into his essay, but instead of focusing on the formula, he gets straight to the source. Smith focuses instead on what essayists should be and what they do that makes them essayists, and by going about it this way, he implies what an essay actually IS, or how a person goes about WRITING an essay. I just admire the way he goes about it. Essaying is not only a genre of literature; it is a way of life. That, very simply put, is Smith's argument in this essay.
Let me give you a few examples:
1. "It is wonderful how the whole world reflects itself in the simple village life." and "I find everything here that other men find in the big world. London is but a magnified Dreamthorp."
Here, Smith is describing the quiet happiness he finds in his small-town life and his simple lifestyle, a happiness that is found in small towns (like his Dreamthorpe) as well as large ones (like London). The fact that he doesn't require a large, exciting, eventful town to write essays is notable, because it exemplifies one of the attributes of an essayist (in other words, he is telling us indirectly about an essayist's tastes and such). Essayists will never run out of things to write about because they are attune to the little, seemingly dull happenings that many people who are only focused on excitement and adventure might miss. You might be wondering why I think a trip to London would be beneficial if I'm really going to be an essayist as Smith describes. My answer is this: I intend to go into my field study experience with Smith's perspective that you don't need adventure or grandeur to live a happy life, or to write essays. That doesn't mean you should shun adventure, it just means that while you're in living life--whatever you're doing--an essayist would pick up on and notice the smaller details in life the some would miss. This might also show you why I'm not just going to London to get exciting topics to write about--as Smith says, if it were only that, it would be more of a vacation and less of a study. Moving on--
2. "[An essayist's] main gift is an eye to discover the suggestiveness of common things; to find a sermon in the most unpromising texts." and "The essayist has no lack of subject-matter...I idle away my time here, and I am finding new subjects every hour. Everything I see or hear is an essay in bud. The world is everywhere whispering essays, and one need only be the world's amanuensis."
I might have gotten by with quoting half of that and getting the same effect, but I didn't want to leave any out. This is similar to my #1 commentary, but I'd like to focus on the "suggestiveness of common things." Common things often sprinkle the pages of essays because, as Smith says, an essayist's responsibility is to find the beauty of the world in the smallest places. In my mind, I relate this easily to a feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving, because I feel like the happiest person is someone who is grateful for the smallest things--who notices the smallest things. An essayist, then, should be a grateful person because he or she notices things that other people may overlook. It is an attitude I am striving to develop--not only because I want to be a grateful person, but because I want to be a great essayist. Okay, one more:
3. "If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well."
One of the commonly-discussed topics in essay theory is the question of the writer's ego. What gall must an essayist have to write unashamedly in first person? to exploit the reader by dropping personal stories and information and interpretation into his lap? to assume that the reader cares what the essayist thinks? As Smith puts it here, though, if someone is worth knowing at all, the reader will keep reading. If not, the reader will move on, and that's that. We, as human beings, have a strong desire to know other people and to be known by other people. Essayists survive on that tendency--but also have to be careful, as Smith and Montaigne warn, that they don't veer into self-praise and self-importance. These are the annoying attributes that will make the reader want to move onto another text. Essayists, while they are talking about themselves, must maintain an air of humility, self-deprecation, and an acknowledgment of being a part of the human existence, not apart from everyone else. A man who is arrogant and self-important qualifies as one who is not necessarily worth knowing at all, let alone knowing well. So Alexander Smith would say. And on this point, I may have to agree with him.
Does that come as a surprise?
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